Debate continues on potential transportation tax

As talks of a potential transportation sales tax referendum push on, debate continues to focus on where the money generated needs to go for the tax to have a chance of at the polls.

By Christopher CurryStaff writer

As talks of a potential transportation sales tax referendum push on, debate continues to focus on where the money generated needs to go for the tax to have a chance of passing at the polls.

On Tuesday, County Commissioner Lee Pinkoson proposed a change of course. He sought to move away from the one-cent tax under consideration for months in order for the county to advance a proposal for a half-cent tax solely focused on road resurfacing and maintenance projects.

The county has a well-publicized $380 million backlog of resurfacing needs and already planned to put all its revenues from the tax, if voters approve it, to that area.

Last week, the other major government player in the tax talks, the Gainesville City Commission, approved a preliminary project list that included some $294 million for the Gainesville Regional Transit System, including the planned development of a bus rapid transit system.

That project list, and the county’s current list of road resurfacing needs, both include more projects than the tax could fund.

One cent would generate some $30 million annually, and the county has proposed to take half that money, while the municipalities split the over half based on their populations. Talks have the tax on the books for 10 or 15 years.

Pinkoson said his proposal Tuesday came from his belief that a referendum that included transit — specifically the long-term plans for bus rapid transit — could not pass in November.

“From the input I’m getting, you will actually have factions working against it if there’s BRT on it,” he added.

Pinkoson said he still supported bus rapid transit — a system that would have dedicated travel lanes for buses — in the long term, and his prior votes to approve plans for multiple mixed-use developments that would be links on a BRT system show that.

“I think when the density is there, it will be very effective ... the density is not there,” he said.

The debate Tuesday was not new and illustrated ongoing disagreements among county commissioners on where money from a transportation sales tax should flow.

Siding with Pinkoson, Commissioner Susan Baird said the root of the tax discussion was the county’s road repair needs, and that is where the money should be targeted

Commissioners Paula DeLaney and Mike Byerly, on the other hand, said the lion’s share of support for tax initiatives historically came from Gainesville voters who may not be concerned with the state of disrepair of the county’s rural roads.

“I don’t know what you’re offering to them if we go road maintenance only,” Byerly said.

He also argued that a decision not to support a tax that funded mass transit would conflict with prior board actions to put in place transportation and land-use policies that promote densely built mixed-use developments and a bus rapid transit system as well as the subsequent approval of developments proposed under those policies.

DeLaney said bus rapid transit could be a “transformative public investment” for the city and county.

Gainesville city commissioners Thomas Hawkins and Randy Wells both attended Tuesday’s meeting and said Gainesville sought a mix of transportation projects that includes road resurfacing, new road construction and transit.

Hawkins said that the city’s road needs were already well-funded from existing sources of revenue and that was one reason the plan for sales tax proceeds put so much funding toward transit plans that remain largely unfunded.

Throughout the meeting, discussion touched on the need to gauge what projects the public might support. To that end, Hawkins has formed a political action committee, Open Alachua, for the purpose of funding polling. That group, he said, was not formed to take a stance in favor of roads or transit but to try to determine what has the best chance with voters.

“I just want to figure out how to make this thing pass,” Hawkins said.

The County Commission and the Gainesville City Commission are slated to have a joint meeting on the transportation tax in late March.